Crematorium for “Elderly”, Classic Metal Advocates - 93%

If your idea of grand scale entertainment is listening to Helstar’s “Nosferatu”, Destiny’s End “Breathe Deep the Dark”, and New Eden’s “Stagnant Progression”, then you should get a hold of the album reviewed here immediately. Seriously, stop reading these ramblings here, and sort yourself out any which way you can (ebay, Tortuga bay, etc.); but I don’t think you’ll be able to find it in the shop across the street…

you prefer to keep on reading, I can see, but that’s entirely your choice. Cause, quite honestly, I don’t have much more to tell you except that this opus is very, very, very good. It’s even better than the band’s scorching debut which first introduced their penchant for the good old US power/speed/thrash the guys bringing back all the nostalgic memories as well as the impetuous gallops. The fair number of serene balladic moments present on it may have raised a few of the hardliners’ eyebrows, but the majority must have been more than happy to hear another tribute to US metal’s most exemplary new representative at the moment.

Three years later the saga goes on with the album reviewed here, on full-throttle at that as the guys try to match the belligerent title with an appropriate music setting, and “Damnation” is a most evocative battle-rouser with heavy epic riffage echoing veterans like Manilla Road and Heavy Load. Nothing of the kind on “The Eyes are Watching”, is a raging galloper smashing everything in its way with steel punishing riffs, leaving the more technical elaborations for “The Anvil”, a more carefully plotted composition that also wins the fans due to a great memorable chorus and a variety of infectious melodic hooks. Even bigger complexity awaits the listener on “The Other Side of the Mirror”, a progressive power/thrashterpiece which initially heavy stomping beginning gets quickly overwritten by a pleiad of technical speedy “skirmishes”.

The title-track carries on in the same vein, an intricate labyrinthine proposition the gallops called in for help again to ensure the more intense side of this no-brainer which abruptly switches onto hyper-active proto-death histrionics to a shattering, also quite astonishing, effect. “Something This Way Comes” is a sure leftover from “Nosferatu”, there can’t be any other way as this is a most tantalizing rifforama, an unparalleled shredfest woven from speedy blitzkrieg dashes and intricate spiral-like formations the latter very close to acquiring a tangible, four-dimensional shape due to the immaculate execution, not to mention the constant nods to the classical heritage. More striking guitar virtuosity on “The Man in Blue” this number trying to match its predecessor every bit of the way despite a slightly lengthy balladic opening, and “Remember Geronimo” emphasizes on the speedy execution the guys rushing onward with fast impetuous guitars, the very good clean emotional singer racing with them with all the passion he can muster, producing his finest performance in the process. All the way to “The Fight to Stay Alive”, a downbeat epitaph to this vigorous roller-coaster, a more quiet progressive power metal piece ala early Fates Warning and Warlord.

It’s great to see a newcomer joining the “old dogs” some of whom (Helstar, Steel Prophet) are fully operational while others (Cauldron Born, New Eden) are having more episodic appearances, making the American scene bustling and lively in the good old 80’s way, even more so having in mind the interest generated towards it from other parts of the world (the Greeks Sacral Rage, the Germans Mesmerized, the French Omainen, etc.). Cremator can only feel encouraged and enthusiastic under the circumstances with the healthy competition around, always ready to “trick” the other “cunning” old school advocates one way or another.